He did not know Me

He said: “I do not know you;
You are not she who came
And made my heart grow tame?”
I laughed: “The same!”

Still said he: “I don’t know you.”
“But I am your Love!” laughed I:
Yours — faithful ever — till I die,
And pulseless lie!”

Yet he said: “I don’t know you.”
Freakful, I went away,
And met pale Time, with “Pray,
What means his Nay?”

Said Time: “He does not know you
In your mask of Comedy.”
But,” said I, “that I have chosen to be:
Tragedy he.”

‘True; hence he did not know you.’
‘But him I could recognize?’
‘Yea. Tragedy is true guise,
Comedy lies.”